


Snickers and Beer

by ItsNotGayIfYouWearSocks



Category: Number24 (Anime)
Genre: Drunken Confessions, Drunken Kissing, Fluff, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Sex, Kissing, Late Night Kisses, Light Angst, M/M, One Shot, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, first fic of ibuki and ethan leTS GOOOOOOOOOOOOO, i love them omg, its only angsty for like two seconds i swear, more like tipsy, not really drunk, not smut i swear, theres not much angst actually
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-05
Updated: 2020-02-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:07:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22574503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ItsNotGayIfYouWearSocks/pseuds/ItsNotGayIfYouWearSocks
Summary: Ibuki started staying later after practice. Seven months was a long time to quit rugby, and only now this week did he notice. Even if he had continued his workout, it was completely different from actually playing the game.Basically: Ethan waits for Ibuki to finish his extra practice and forces him to let him into his apartment to play minecraft together, but Ibuki just suffers the entire time.
Relationships: Ueoka Ibuki/ethan taylor
Comments: 6
Kudos: 112





	Snickers and Beer

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written a fanfiction for,,, a whole,,,, year,,,,? Yeah, but I just couldn't believe there aren't any fics of them yet, so ya bet I decided to make my own. 
> 
> By the way, the perspective kind of shifts from Ibuki to Ethan halfway through, and I swear that wasn't my intention.

Ibuki started staying later after practice. Seven months was a long time to quit rugby, and only now this week did he notice. Even if he had continued his workout, it was completely different from actually playing the game. 

Heaving out a heavy sigh, Ibuki wiped the sweat off his forward with his sleeve. He’d just finished twenty-five laps across the field and was ready to start doing a couple more when he heard a familiar voice call from him.

“Why’re you still here? It’s almost nine.”

Turning his head sideways, he locked eyes with Ethan and said, “Oh it’s you.”

“Of course,” Ethan grinned, walking over.

“Why are you even here?” Ibuki questioned, turning to fully face the other. Ethan was in casual clothing, holding a plastic bag he recognised was from the convenient store a couple blocks from campus - the same convenient store by his apartment.

“I tried seeing if you were home, but you weren’t there,” Ethan replied casually, shaking his head with a defeated look. “I was even gonna surprise you with these.” The blond held out the plastic bag to him.

Ibuki peered into the bag, staring bleakly at the bottles of cheap beer and bars of snickers cluttered together. 

“I was gonna have this by myself when I couldn’t find you,” Ethan continued easily, a small grin growing on his handsome features. “But luck really is on my side today.”

“No thanks,” Ibuki said dryly, quickly going back to do stretches before Ethan could bother him any longer. He expected the man to leave when he heard no protest which made him oddly disappointed.

However, once he started running another lap, he noticed said man casually sitting on the bleachers with his wide, annoying smile. Ibuki swore he burst a blood vessel on his forehead.

Even with the unwanted company, Ibuki continued his extra training for another hour before he finally decided to call it a day. 

“He’s seriously still there?” Ibuki asked himself, looking at the sleeping blond still sitting on the bleachers. He couldn’t help the small smile that made its way on his face. This guy.

Gathering his stuff quickly, Ibuki mindlessly changed thrusted his sweaty shirt into his gym bag before heading over to the sleeping figure. Shaking Ethan’s shoulders, he could’t help but stare at his sleeping. He felt his ear grow warm when Ethan’s eyes flicked open and immediately met his own. Beautiful emerald green eyes met lilac before Ethan closed his eyes back again and yawned.

“Good morning, sleeping beauty.” Ibuki said, shifting his gaze to calm his heart. 

“Shut up,” Ethan murmured, nudging Ibuki in the side. “I was just resting my eyes.”

“I’m sure you were,” Ibuki said sarcastically. “Now come on, I’ll walk you to the dorms.”

Ethan seemed to be more awake by this notion. “Haha?! So you really want me to drink all of this beer by myself? I thought we could hang out for old time’s sake, but you really gonna do me like that.”

Ibuki looked at Ethan blankly for a couple of seconds before letting out a low laugh. Brushing his fingers through his blond hair, he said, “Do what you want,” - he added, albeit hesitantly - “darling.”

And there it was again, that stupidly annoying smile that Ibuki could never bring himself to say no to.

“But we aren’t drinking those,” Ibuki said tepidly, pointing at the plastic bag Ethan held in his hands.

“Wha-? Why not?” Ethan asked. 

“Beer tastes gross when its warm.” Ibuki replied, lifting his hand and ruffling the other’s hair. A laugh crawled up his throat and out his mouth when Ethan pouted and attempted to fix his hair.

The rest of the walk was full of chatter, mostly on Ethan’s part. Ibuki quietly listened as he talked about all the things the team did during the past seven months, or about the dumb stuff he did to his teachers. 

“Y’know I really missed you,” Ethan said softly in English, his expression was unreadable. Ibuki stopped a couple steps I front of the other when he stopped.

“Sorry about, well, that,” Ibuki responded. It was times like these when he was glad Ethan dragged him to his house to learn English.

Ethan was quiet for a couple of seconds before his expression softened and a small smile returned. “Yeah, I know. You said it almost twenty times when Natsusa added you back to the group chat.”

“Well, yeah, ‘cuz I am,” Ibuki said.

Ethan shook his head, as if to dissipate the topic and started walking again.

“By the way,” Ibuki started, once again walking beside the other. “How did you find out where I lived?”

“Your instagram,” said Ethan, pulling out his phone and handing it to Ibuki. “You forgot to block me, unlike everyone else.” Ethan seemed to be proud of this, so much so that Ibuki didn’t want to tell him he purposely didn’t block him.

“Then if you knew where I lived before, why didn’t you ever visit?” 

“I tried, but you were always out,” Ethan replied, crossing his arms behind his head. “And you were barely ever on campus, so.”

Ibuki felt a tingling sense of guilt, but never voiced it. The walk was quiet from then on until they reached the apartment. 

The apartment building was only a couple stories high – one of those places with three or four apartments on each floor. The front door had a passcode lock which Ibuki put it quickly before opening the door for the other. Ethan walked in, but not without adding, “Thank you, my sweetheart.”

“After you, darling,” Ibuki replied, immune to the foreign pet names by now, before following after Ethan. The lobby was bare, with only a single dying potted plant in the corner and a door for the stairs beside the lift. Ibuki was about to click the up button for the lift when Ethan suggested they use the stairs for, “exercise. I mean, that’s why you were staying after practice, right?”

Ibuki stared with a cold expression as he pressed the button with on hand, the other holding up his middle finger. “Fuck off.”

Ethan just let out a loud laugh, patting Ibuki hardly on the back. Ibuki’s expression didn’t soften as he turned his head away, silently questioning why he allowed the blond to follow him home and why that laugh made his heart ache.

“You’re so cute, Ibuki,” Ethan said between his laughter. Although Ibuki knew he meant nothing by the comment, he couldn’t help but feel the butterflies finally leaving their cocoons in his stomach.

“Shut up,” Ibuki mumbled, staring straight ahead at the opening doors. Right about now, anything would be better than looking at Ethan; even the dying potted plant in the corner. 

They entered the lift once the doors fully opened, Ethan’s laughter dying down and completely oblivious to how their arms were touching together.

“Damn his stupidly bulk body,” Ibuki cursed under his breath, the muscles hidden under his clothes finally revealing themselves full force against his bare arm. “Damn whoever invented rugby. Damn whoever decided muscles were attractive.”

“By the way,” Ibuki said, coughing into his fist awkwardly. “I haven’t cleaned my apartment in weeks, so it’s really messy.”

“Don’t worry about it, Ibuki,” replied Ethan, his smile back on his face. “Next time clean up before I visit then.”

“I would’ve cleaned up if you gave me a head’s up that you were visiting,” Ibuki mumbled, leading Ethan out the lift and into the small hallway. His apartment was the one at the end.

Ethan was quiet throughout the taxing journey of exiting lift, walk to the apartment and then entering the apartment. 

“Just leave your shoes wherever,” Ibuki told him, easily kicking his sneakers off into one corner beside the door. Ethan raised a brow at this and took it upon himself to place both their pairs of shoes beside each other neatly by the welcome mat( the same one that he made him feel the need to straighten it) before entering the apartment.

“Hey, give me the bag, I’ll put the stuff in the fridge,” Ibuki said once Ethan entered the living room. His hand was stretched out through the kitchen door while the rest of his body was facing somewhere in the kitchen, and based off how he was bending down, Ethan assumed he was looking through the fridge.

Ethan obeyed and handed the bag over, choosing to watch the other blond rather than sit alone in the living room.

“Have you eaten yet?” Ibuki asked, his eyes flicking to look at Ethan for a second before looking back at the contents of his fridge in thought. 

“Yeah,” Ethan said – well, Ethan considered ‘dinner’ as three snicker bars and half a can of beer. Ibuki seemed to know this fact too, ignoring what Ethan said and said, “I have the stuff to make pasta or something. That’s probably a lot healthier than chocolate and beer.”

Ethan felt the last sentence punch him in the guts. Leave it to Ibuki to judge his extremely unhealthy eating habits. 

“Anything’s fine,” Ethan mumbled, pouting his lips and folding his arms. 

Ibuki hummed in confirmation, taking a couple things out of the fridge and onto the counter. The kitchen was pretty small compared to the rest of the house, around the size of two cubicles in a public toilet.

As Ibuki started cooking, Ethan had a peek in the fridge himself and took one of the cans of beer that were already there. He chugged half of the can down before watching the other shuffle around. He paid close attention to his movements, even down to the smallest motion. He blamed the alcohol for his ears and cheeks feeling hot.

“Oi,” Ethan started, gaining a hum in acknowledgement from Ibuki. “Did you still keep Minecraft on your Xbox?”

Ibuki stopped what he was doing and stared dumbfounded for a moment. Blinking a couple of times, the other blond let out a snort and replied, “Yeah, why – is that the only reason why you wanted to come over?”

Ethan faked surprise and answered, “Ah! My beloved has discovered I am a mere gold digger. What ever shall I do?”

Ibuki let out a comfortable laugh, his eyes closed and mouth upturned into a crescent moon. Ethan wanted to laugh with him, but he felt his mouth go dry as his heart started racing. 

Ethan knew that he could stare at him forever. He made sure to remember every detail of that moment, every crease of his face, every way his muscles moved, the way his shoulders bounced as he let out a laugh. He’d heard the blond laugh on countess occasions, but this moment felt different. He couldn’t exactly place it, he just knew.

“Ethan, you okay?” Ibuki asked after his fit was over, the gentle tears clinging to the edges of his eyes reflected the yellow tinted light, making the orbs staring into his lilac eyes have a gold warmth to them. “You look red – geez – how much have you drank?”

He finally snapped back to reality when he felt a cool hand pressed gently to his forehead. Ethan was glad he was still only tipsy, or else he was sure he would’ve leaned into the touch.

“Yeah, I’m good,” Ethan replied, holding Ibuki’s forearm and pulling it back down. “Hey, where’s your TV. I’m gonna assume you didn’t set up the Xbox for me, so I’ll do that while you’re busy.”

Ibuki looked at Ethan in the eyes, as if he was searching for something.

“The stuff is in the small box by the TV, in the living room” Ibuki finally said, a sigh passing his lips as he pulled his arm from Ethan’s grip. Rubbing the back of his neck with an expression of apprehension, Ibuki turned his attention to the pot of pasta that started to boil. “Should have the words Xbox on it or something. There’s not much in there, so I don’t know if everything’s there.”

Ethan nodded before heading towards the living room.

The place wasn’t too messy, with the odd shirt or jacket thrown on the floor or over the back of a chair. The entire apartment wasn’t as big as Ethan had expected, but it was a lot better than the dorms on campus.

It wasn’t hard to find the box.

“He wasn’t kidding when he said the box was small,” Ethan whispered to himself, sitting cross-legged by the TV with the box in hand. Luckily he still remembered how to set up an Xbox from last time, so the only problem was whether everything was there.

In Ethan’s opinion, the only way to find something in a bag( or box in this case) is to dump all the contents on the floor and find it that way. Needless to say, that is exactly what he did. It wouldn’t matter too much as long as he cleaned up.

Scanning the contents now laid across the floor, he could tell there wasn’t anything missing. Connecting it to the TV was a piece of cake, and it barely took five minutes to plug everything and get it running.

By the time Ibuki came into the room with two bowls of pasta, Ethan was creating a new Minecraft world while lounging on the three-person sofa.

“What happened to your old world?” Ibuki asked, placing the plates on the coffee table before retreating back into the kitchen.

“Everything’s been wiped,” Ethan responded and placed the controller on the armrest. 

“That sucks,” Ibuki said, returning with two cans of beer and over a dozen snickers bars. He laid the items on the coffee table like a pirate laying out his most valued treasures. “You want me to toss that out for you?”

Ethan took a few seconds to realised he mean the empty beer can sitting beside the controller. “Yeah, thanks.”

He handed the can over and watched the other leave the room to the hallway and then back. He continued to watch as the blond take his own bowl and sit on the floor by his feet.

The rest of dinner, and the hours that followed was quiet. The comfortable silence was taken from the tacit agreement between the two; Ethan could play whatever video game Ibuki had, while Ibuki could scroll through social media or read a book. That’s how its always been since they started hangig out, and neither of them minded it.

Ethan wasn’t sure when he had moved to be sitting shoulder to shoulder on the floor with Ibuki, or when they each finished seven snickers bars and god knows how many beer cans, but it just sort of happened. It wasn’t as if he was complaining though.

“Hey, Ethan,” Ibuki suddenly said, softer than a whisper. If it weren’t for the fact their sides were pretty much stuck closely together with glue, Ethan was sure he wouldn’t have heard it.

“What’s up?” Ethan turned his head sideways to the blond’s direction.

“What if,” Ibuki started, shifting off so he was sitting cross-legged by Ethan’s side. “What if aging is a disease, and the reason why aliens won’t visit Earth is because of that.”

Ethan blinked a few times. Not because he thought it was stupid, but because he couldn’t quite understand how that thought came to Ibuki’s mind.

“Think about it,” Ibuki continued on a ramble, but Ethan couldn’t focus on the words. His attention was on the way he waved his hands around slightly when he was talking, and how he’d make these odd expressions he could only describe as adorable, and how soft his lips and skin looked.

Later, Ethan would blame it on the alcohol, even though he knew damn well he could handle ten times the amount he drank that night and even then he’d still never do what he did. 

In the middle of one of Ibuki’ sentences, it was as if Ethan’s body was moving on its own accord. He had leaned in and kissed the blond halfway through a sentence. 

“…” Ethan was silent when he pulled away, still not comprehending what he just did. All he knew was that, damn Ibuki looks cute with his cheeks red like that.

“Did you just..?” Ibuki trailed off, his gaze unwavering as he stared at him. There was a look of hope in his eyes that did not go unnoticed. 

Before he could say anything else, Ethan leaned in again and this time Ibuki seemed to react. He felt cold fingers ghosting over his bare knee, as if testing the waters. The kiss was chaste, but the lingering almost-there touches said otherwise.

They pulled away once more. This time a different kind of silence hung heavy in the room, light a wave of emotions and feelings and alcohol mixed together to create a suffocating silence neither of them wanted to break.

“Hey,” Ethan finally whispered, his heart racing so fast he was sure he hadn’t even felt this way during a game.

“Hey,” Ibuki responded, his hand not moving from Ethan’s outer thigh. The skin Ibuki touched felt like it was on fire. The blond’s breath against his lips had the faint smell of beer and chocolate and something else Ethan really wanted to find out the taste of.

“I like you.” Ethan confessed, barely lower than a whisper.

Ibuki gulped. “Me too. I mean, I like you.”

Ethan quirked the corners of his lips up, a breath he did not realise he was holding passed through his lips, leaving a hot trail in his lungs and throat. He wondered whether he was making Ibuki feel the same way he made him felt. “Can I kiss you again.”

“You didn’t ask the first two times,” Ibuki responded with a hint of cheekiness, but that quickly dissolved once Ethan had his lips on his.

Ethan was certain he loved the hands that pulled off his top to explore his chest, and he loved the way his skin felt against his lips, and he loved it when he called out his name, and he loved how his mouth tasted of cheap beer and chocolate.

Sure, it wasn’t perfect, far from it. Their noses bumped occasionally, their teeth clashed, nails dug into skin, but it was theirs – and that’s what mattered.

**Author's Note:**

> Like, I said, I haven't written a fic in a year, and I didn't have time to proofread, so please go easy on me.
> 
> Anyways, I might make this into a series because a) I want to practice my writing more, and b) I think about these two a lot and I just want them to be happy.


End file.
